Helio Drops 100 Jobs, But That's OK

It’s no secret that anybody who knows what they’re doing cellphone-wise knows about Helio. If you’re not one of those, I shall explain: Helio is an MVNO that’s a partnership between Earthlink and SK Telecom. They buy bandwidth from Sprint at wholesale rates, basically renting sprints cell towers for their customers. Those customers aren’t customers, though: They’re members. That’s what Helio likes to call them, and that’s how they’re treated. Helio doesn’t nickel and dime its users by charging for every-little-thing, in fact most of their plans include all you can eat texting, pictures messaging, data, and other features.

MVNOs are usually not in good shape. The shuttering of Amp’d Mobile attests to that fact. Helio, though, is doing just fine, thank you very much. So fine that it now knows exactly where the money’s coming from, to the point that it this week it trimmed some fat, letting about 100 people go from jobs that were newly deemed non-essential.

Usually this is a sign of trouble, but not so in this case. In fact, July, which marked the MVNO’s first birthday, was Helio’s most profitable month, and August is already set to beat it. That’s fantastic news, as Helio is the carrier for real geeks. If you’re not on Helio now, you should consider it. And if you are, you know exactly what we’re talking about. Congrats to Helio are definitely in order.